Video Chronicle

On May 5, 2017, Robert
Traba delivered a lecture "What
Do Neighbors Remember About Each Other? Polish-German Experience with Ukraine in the
Background."

The lecture focused on the mechanism of constructing collective memory in bilateral
relations. What do nations choose in their past to "discover" and develop their
traditions and why? The lecture and the discussion will be based on the results
of one of the largest European projects on memory "Polish-German Memorial
Sites." In 2007-2015, it engaged 117 scholars from 6 countries, and
resulted into a nine volume publication. 90% of shared memorial sites are
perceived absolutely differently in Poland and in Germany. Why is it so? Is
this a universal experience? Where is the place for Ukraine in the bilateral
memorialization of their own past by Poles and Germans?

Discussant: Vasyl
Rasevych – a historian, a public intellectual, a researcher at the
Center for Urban History.

The event was held in Polish with simultaneous translation.

Robert Traba – is a historian, a PhD, professor, director of the Center for
History Studies of Polish Academy of Sciences in Berlin, honorary professor of
the Free University of Berlin. He is an expert in the history of Polish-German
borderlands, collective memory, and historical policy of Poland and East
Central Europe, one of the leading promoters of public history in the present
day Poland. Author and editor of several dozens of books in Polish, German, and
English, such as "The Past in the Present" (2015),
"Polsko-niemieckie miejsca pamięci, t. I-IV" (2012-2015),
"Wschodniopruskość. Tożsamość regionalna i narodowa w kulturze politycznej
Niemiec" (2003).